Days' Memories
by artistXK64
Summary: My interpretation of 358/2 Days and Chain of Memories written from Axel's perspective, along with some other events I make up, just for fun. Rated T for violence. And I don't own any part of Kingdom Hearts, I just like writing about it.
1. The Icing on the Cake

**Okay, so I'm new at this whole writing thing, and this is my first attempt at fanfiction. Please review!**

I remember it like it was yesterday, when I first met him. I had no idea that my life would never be the same again, if you could even call it life, seeing as I shouldn't exist, but then, neither should he, or any of the Organization for that matter. That's the thing about us Nobodies: we're not supposed to exist, but we do anyway. I guess we're just rebels that way. Anyway, when I first saw him, I thought he was the victim of one of Vexen's "experiments". All ragged and acting like a complete zombie, he could easily have been one of the replicas Vexen enjoys making, he did look eerily familiar... but who would he be a replica of? Probably just some innocent person he encountered on a recent mission. Xemnas introduced our new member as Number XIII, Roxas, claiming that he was the Keyblade's chosen one or something like that. What I wanted to know was why the Keyblade would choose a zombie like this kid, but that soon changed when I got to know him.

For the next few days, I saw Roxas around the castle a lot, usually accompanied by another member of the Organization. The poor kid looked like a lost puppy sometimes. I wished there was something I could do for him, but I wasn't sure what there was to do. Then I remembered eating sea-salt ice cream with my friends as a kid. Perhaps introducing him to something normal would help him feel welcome, and maybe open up a bit. To tell the truth, I missed having something fun to do with friends ever since Saïx and I fell apart. I found Roxas in the Grey Area that afternoon listening to Demyx jamming on his sitar and singing. He was watching intently, like he had never heard music or even seen a musical instrument before. He probably hadn't. I sat on the couch nearby and listened for a bit. Demyx continued to sing. He was a good musician, and he worked hard for it. If only he could work that hard on his job in the Organization... I applauded Demyx for a bit and then realized that Roxas was just sitting still. "Roxas, when somebody finishes a performance, you're supposed to clap for them." I explained. "Oh." He mumbled and then began to clap slowly, unsure of whether he was doing it right or not. "Do you like it?" Demyx asked. "It's just a cover, but I've been working on it a lot lately." "Yeah, it's great! What do you think, Roxas?" I hoped Roxas liked music too – it would be another bit of normal life to help him get used to the Organization. "Yeah... it's really good." he replied. "Wow! Thanks, guys!" Demyx replied, looking a little embarrassed – he was used to the rest of the Organization begging him to stop playing his music. "Well, I've got to go. They gave me another "eliminate the giant heartless" mission. Would it really kill them to give me an un-violent mission every now and then? I could be great at recon!" he walked away continuing to mumble over his job. I looked over at Roxas, who was trying to imitate the motions of playing the sitar. "Hey Roxas, you up for some ice cream?" I asked. "Ice cream?" he replied. Did this poor kid know anything? "Yeah, come on – I'll show you." I opened a Corridor of Darkness and led the way through.

We arrived in Twilight Town, the safest place I could think of to bring him. I bought two sea-salt ice creams from the vendor at the train station and we headed up the stairs to the balcony at the top of the building. The station building was tall, and there was no rail on the balcony, but I knew Roxas would be okay after training with Lexaeus for the past few days. Anyone would be extremely fit after just one training session with him. I sat down on the edge and watched as Roxas carefully eased himself into a seated position next to me. "Here you go." I said, offering him one of the ice creams. "It's called sea-salt ice cream. Got it memorized?" He took the ice cream and stared at it for a while. "Yeah. It's cold." He finally replied. I laughed. "Of course it's cold. That's why they call it ice cream." Roxas stared at his ice cream some more. "Oh... What do I... do with it?" he asked, looking over just as I took a bite of my own ice cream. "Never mind, I see." he took a bite. I'll never forget the face he made then: surprise, happiness, and a little bit of brain freeze all mixed together into one priceless expression. "It's sweet... and salty." We continued to eat in a silence broken only by the occasional bird flying by or laugh faintly rising from the children playing below. This was the time of day that the town was named for. In this world, the sunset was so purely red that everything was tinted with its unique light. There is no other world with a sunset quite like this one. I laid back and stared into the red of the sky. "Axel," Roxas whispered "the sunset... it's beautiful." A smile made its way across my face. "Yeah, it is." I hoped Roxas would continue to improve so he could enjoy more of the little pleasures in life. I wanted him to be able to enjoy life, unlike some of our comrades who mostly just alternated between work and rest. That had to be a miserable way to live.

A few days later, I walked into the Grey Area to see Roxas standing next to Saïx. I waited a few yards back, thinking that Roxas was receiving instruction or something, since that was usually Saïx's job, but then I noticed Larxene lurking in the corner with a complacent smirk. Either she was up to no good (like always) or I was about to receive some miserable task that she should have gotten. She had always been talented at getting her way. "Axel," Saïx began "I need you to teach Roxas here about his role in the Organization." So Larxene had escaped the task of teaching the new guy, and she had also dumped it onto me. Saïx continued to recite instructions. "Today you will teach him only the basics: how to use the Corridors of Darkness and how to behave in other worlds. Anything else is up to you, but be sure that you do not fail the Superior." Roxas tilted his head towards the floor a bit. "Superior?" He was still a zombie. "Roxas," I explained "the Superior is Xemnas. X-E-M-N-A-S. He's our boss. Got it memorized?" He merely nodded. "All right, well, we better get going." I said after an awkward pause. I received another nod in response. "You don't have to talk my ears off, you know. Let's go." I almost wished Larxene had gotten this job like she was supposed to. How was I supposed to figure out how to explain missions? I opened a Corridor of Darkness and was just about to leave when I realized that Roxas was staring at the new member who had been introduced that morning. "Roxas, Xion will be okay. Let's go" I had nearly forgotten Number XIV already. Weird... Maybe it was because Xion's hood was always up.

This time I decided to take Roxas to the tunnel ways underneath Twilight Town. They were usually deserted, so we wouldn't have to worry about raising any suspicion from the locals. "Okay Roxas, like Saïx said, I get to teach you about missions today. Missions are... well, they're... um… you know what, talking is getting us nowhere, let's just get our hands dirty. Follow me." I jumped up a couple of ledges and showed Roxas how to hang on to high ledges and pull himself up – skills that he would need to master if he was going to be useful to the Organization. Roxas followed me easily. "Is that all? Lexaeus taught me that." He said when we reached the top of the ledges. Lexaeus had trained him well: he was barely breathing hard and still looked like he had plenty of energy. "No, that's not all. You see, you can't just get through missions with physical strength – you have to use multiple skills if you want to be successful." I explained. "What skills?" Roxas asked. "Well..." I began, searching my mind for another useful skill. I found it. "You have to be aware of your surroundings." I continued triumphantly. "There's a treasure chest hidden somewhere in these tunnels. If you observe your environment well on every mission, you can find a lot of these. For today, there's only one, and I want you to find it." "All right." Roxas replied and set off to search every corner of the tunnels. I was just glad I remembered that chest that I had neglected to open on my last mission.

After what felt like an eternity of walking in circles, he finally found the treasure chest in a discreet corner of the tunnels. "Hey Axel!" he called. "I found it!" Sure enough, Roxas was standing next to a gold treasure chest with blue designs painted on the lid and the sides. "Good job, Roxas!" He continued to just stand there. "So... what are you waiting for?" "What do you mean?" he asked. "I found it, didn't I?" "Well," I began, realizing that he didn't know very much yet. "There's this thing about treasure chests. There's usually treasure inside." "So, you want me to open it, then?" he replied. "Yes Roxas, that's generally what we do with treasure chests. We open them" I explained, trying not to be frustrated with him. After all, he had probably never heard of anything we were teaching him since he joined the Organization. "Oh, and you can keep what you find in it." I added just in case he couldn't figure that out either. "Ok. What else are we going to do?" he asked after taking out the Potion that was inside. He probably had no idea what to do with it, but it would come in handy when he started learning how to fight. "Um, just remember to not do anything that would make anybody suspicious when you're in other worlds, or anywhere for that matter. Otherwise, we're done for the day. Good job Roxas." I was glad to be done explaining everything. Roxas mumbled something while looking at the ground. "What's that?" I asked. He looked up at me. "I said I could have done that blindfolded." He said, much more boldly this time. Something inside me cheered a bit. He actually had a personality other than "zombie"! "I dunno if I want a blindfolded zombie on the loose!" I joked. "Hey!" "I'm just picking on you. Hey, you've made a lot of progress lately. I'd say you deserve a little something extra. The icing on the cake, if you will." I hoped I could get him to continue to progress – the ability to form actual sentences was only one step. "The icing on the cake?" Roxas inquired with a slight tilt of his head. "Yeah, come on, I'll show you." I said as I headed towards the train station.

"Here you go!" I handed Roxas an ice cream. "Do you remember what it's called?" Roxas stared at the distinctly blue treat in his hand and pondered my question. "It's called sea-salt ice cream." I reminded him. "I told you that last time. Get it memorized, Roxas." He nodded and took a bite. "At least I remember the sunset." he said after a while. "Yeah, it's pretty amazing." I replied. "It'd be pretty hard to forget something like this." Just then, the fiery red sun dipped barely below the horizon. For an instant, it flung its vivid crimson rays across the world, making everything so intensely red that it was almost painful to keep my eyes open. The light faded away as quickly as it had come, leaving the town to darkness for the night. I hated to break the silence, but we had to get back to the castle before anyone started to think we had gone missing. "Well, it's about time we headed back." I spoke quietly, but my voice still echoed against the wall in the darkness. "Yeah." Roxas mumbled, still affected by the brilliance of the sunset. I opened a Corridor of Darkness and hesitated before entering. "Hey, Roxas, let's do this again after our next mission together." I thought I saw a faint smile through the dark. "Yeah."

**Like I said, this is my first attempt at this. Please review, if this goes over well, I'll add some more chapters!**


	2. The Icky Jobs

**Another chapter! :D I'm trying a new format for this, hopefully it works :P Anyway, enjoy!**

"Lexaeus, why are you late?" I could see in Xemnas' piercing yellow eyes just how desperately he was trying to intimidate the latecomer. There was nothing and no one in the world who could intimidate Lexaeus, and Xemnas knew it.

"I'm sorry, Master Xemnas." Lexaeus said with a subtle hint of defiance. "I had a feeling that-"

"Enough apologies and storytelling." Xemnas interrupted. "I asked you a question, and I want an answer, not an excuse."

"Master, a large Heartless has appeared outside the castle and it's trying to break in." Lexaeus answered, trying to hide his frustration. Xemnas had been getting impatient lately, with Kingdom Hearts still not being complete.

"Then you may go take it out. Xion, you will accompany him and collect the heart." Xemnas ordered. "Vexen, Marluxia, what have you discovered about the new world?" he continued once Lexaeus and Xion had left.

"There are countless pureblood Heartless, and the number is growing." Marluxia answered quickly before Vexen could start one of his painfully detailed reports on every corner of the world.

Clearly irritated, Vexen added: "It seems one of the locals is using some kind of machine to increase the Heartless population."

"Very well," Xemnas began "Vexen, find the machine and see if it can be of any use to the Organization. If it cannot, stop this machine - we don't need a whole world full of purebloods taking hearts that we should be collecting for Kingdom Hearts. Marluxia, you will lead a party to eliminate the purebloods that already exist. Take whomever you need. I trust you will make the best decision, having seen the world for yourself."

We continued to discuss the day's missions for a few minutes, and I found myself in a team with Marluxia, Xaldin, and Vexen, and with the task of taking out the giant Heartless in the new world. No one cared to mentioned how many there were. This was going to be a long day.

"Axel! There's your target!" I had no idea who just shouted at me, but sure enough, there was a Darkside Heartless in the middle of the clearing, its huge, ugly head turning side to side as it watched the battles around its feet.

"Why do I always get stuck with the icky jobs?" I muttered to myself as I summoned my chakrams and ran towards the enormous Heartless. I knew I wasn't going to be able to hide once I started fighting it, so I didn't bother to try to sneak up on it. Sure enough, it noticed me pretty quickly and swung its gigantic fist. I ducked, feeling it just graze the back of my head. That was close, too close. I whirled around and threw a chakram back at the monster, it hit its mark and its brother followed suit. It fell to its knees in its rage, and I jumped out of the way just in time to not be crushed under its immense weight. I'd made the thing mad now! I had a clear shot to its vulnerable head, even if it meant jumping around a bit to avoid the clouds of darkness it was now summoning. I threw both chakrams at the hideous face, but it saw them and easily avoided both. This was a clever one! "BURN!" I shouted, getting frustrated. Most giant Heartless were pretty stupid, and only a challenge to fight because of their size. I threw a few flames at it and it flinched a bit. I hoped that was a sign that it was at least weakened now. I managed to hit it once more and it collapsed to the ground and dissolved into darkness. _Finally!_ My mission was done, but there was still a massive crowd of smaller Heartless. I could see Marluxia's scythe swinging through the black mass of shadows he faced, and in the distance I could barely make out a few Heartless Xaldin had flung into the air, followed by a couple of his lances. They had it under control, but there was still an overwhelming number of heartless squirming around. I couldn't just let them continue to fight while I waited idly, so I took out a few heartless and searched for more giants. I turned around a corner and found exactly what I was looking for: three massive Darkside Heartless towered over the mayhem below.

_Okay, I can do this. One at a time. They're just stupid ugly beasts anyway._ I wasn't so sure though, I had never seen Heartless this big before. And if these were as good of fighters as the last one, there was no way I could take out all three of them on my own.

"Come on, is that the best you guys can do?" I challenged the third and hopefully final Darkside. It had taken me forever to defeat the other two, and I was running out of patience… and strength. It responded by thrusting its hand into the ground, missing me by several yards. "I guess it is." I said, just before I saw what it actually meant to do. It had created a swirling mass of darkness on the ground, and a horde of shadows was crawling out of the darkness. "Oh, no you don't!" I shouted at it. I threw both of my weapons at it, and then several flames. It didn't even notice. Something was wrong: all the others would have been at least somewhat weakened by a blow like that. It might have just been my imagination, but I was pretty sure this one was MUCH larger than the other two were. This one must be the leader. It pulled a nearby lamppost out of the ground and lobbed it in my direction. I jumped to one side, but not far enough. The ring of the metal post landing on the ground echoed through the clearing.

I found myself lying on the ground, pure pain searing through my whole body. _Nice._ I jumped up, seeking revenge, but collapsed immediately. "All right, we can do it this way!" I yelled at the monster. _What am I saying?! How am I supposed to fight if I can't even stand up?!_ I threw one of my chakrams at it, hoping to buy some time. Not that it would even notice. Its fist was flying straight towards me. _This it it. This is the end._ I braced myself for the impact, and for death. I saw a flash, then felt a blast of wind. I was pretty sure I was done for.

"Can't even handle one Darkside by yourself? I thought your specialty was giant Heartless?" It sounded faintly like Xaldin's voice.

_How did he get here? Did I die? Or maybe I passed out? What's going on?_ My mind continued to race. I had to do something. I had to know if I was even alive. I tried to stand up, forgetting my injuries, but the pain returned in full force, striking me down again.

_Right, I have some revenge to get._ I gathered what little strength I had and threw a storm of fire and chakrams at the monster. At the same time, I saw all six of Xaldin's lances fly in the same direction and Marluxia's scythe leaving its signature trail of flowers as its master also targeted the same enemy.

_Marluxia's here too?! When did he get here?_ It didn't really matter how anyone got anywhere at that moment, the creature was finally weakened! But just barely. We continued to fight with all our strength, which wasn't much in comparison to our enemy.

After an eternity of struggling through the ever-worsening pain, the monster finally looked like it was getting to be almost as worn out as we were.

"It's mine to finish!" I shouted to Xaldin and Marluxia, there was no way I was going to let them finish my mission for me! I fought the repulsive creature with every last scrap of strength I could muster. Finally, it collapsed and dissolved into darkness just like the other three before it. I collapsed as well, unable to move, or even speak. I wanted to help eliminate the still enormous crowd of smaller Heartless, but there was nothing I could do.

Marluxia sensed my frustration. "Stay where you are. We've got it covered. I'll help you more when I can." he promised, tossing me a small green bottle before he ran off to finish the last of the shadows.

The potion Marluxia had given me helped tremendously, but it still took almost everything I had just to sit up. I felt like I was at fault for not being able to help, but anyone would have been weakened by the blow I had taken. If only I had judged the path of that stupid lamppost better. I tried to get a glimpse of the battle around the corner, but I was too weak to see, so I tried to judge how it was going by the sounds. Then I realized there was no sound. Maybe the battle was over? I heard the distinct sound of a Heartless being taken out and then Xaldin's voice.

"There's the last of them." he declared triumphantly. "Is Axel okay?"

"Last I knew, he could hardly move, but I gave him a potion, so he should be a little better." Marluxia replied as they came around the corner.

"Hey. Thanks, Marluxia." Every word was a struggle.

"Take it easy." Xaldin said, seeing how hard it was for me to speak. The two helped me stand up and limp through a Corridor back to the castle.

We got to the castle and I immediately collapsed, exhausted and still in pain. I pulled myself up to my knees and took in my surroundings. We had arrived in the Grey Room. Demyx was running towards me, leaving his sitar laid carelessly on the floor.

"Hey, man! What's wrong?" he asked urgently.

"Giant… Darkside." I managed to say.

"That's gotta be rough! Hey, let's get you to the couch, you'll be more comfortable there." he suggested.

"Sure." With the help of my three comrades, I stumbled to the couch and sat down.

"Uh, guys?" Demyx began, sounding a little worried. "Didn't you have Vexen with you?"

"Yes we did. We're going to head back and check in on the machine and make sure we took care of all the Heartless." Xaldin answered.

Marluxia sighed. "We would have finished before we returned, but…" he gestured towards me.

"Are you two okay?" Demyx asked.

"Yes we're fine." Marluxia assured him.

"All right. Good luck guys!" Demyx called as Xaldin and Marluxia left.

I was too exhausted to do much, so I just stayed where I was. This wasn't just going to be a long day, this was going to be a long week at the very least. On the bright side, I wasn't going to have to fight any more giant Heartless for quite a while, and I could do whatever I wanted until I recovered.

**I hope you enjoyed it! :)**


	3. Friendship

"Hey, Axel! Looks like you're feeling better today!"

"Oh, hey Demyx, you're up early!" I replied.

"So are you. what's up?" Demyx asked.

"Just getting a little restless after all these easy missions." I sighed.

"Well, Axel, if you hadn't gotten injured, you wouldn't have gotten easy missions." he teased.

I laughed. "Fair enough. So what are you up to, then?"

"I was just gonna work on a new song. Wanna hear it?"

"Sure!" Unlike the rest of the Organization, I liked a lot of Demyx's music.

"You know what, Axel?" Demyx asked out of nowhere.

"Hm?"

"It really means a lot to me that you appreciate how hard I work for my music." Demyx could always pull off random comments like that.

"Hey, that's what friends are for. But aren't we Nobodies not supposed to have emotions?" I teased.

"Nah, that's just some stupid lie Xemnas made up." he declared.

"I guess that makes two of us."

Demyx smiled. "Hey, pick a song, I'll play it! he exclaimed, returning to his normal enthusiastic self. He played a few more songs. I even found myself singing along at one point.

"Here's a good one!" Demyx said as he began another song. I recognized it immediately and started using the coffee table as a sort of drum.

"DEMYX, WOULD YOU STOP THAT INFERNAL RACKET?!" It was Larxene. We played and sang louder until the song was over. She wasn't going to stop us from rocking out, and in an out-of-the-way part of the castle at that.

"Well, we better get to work." I said when we had finished.

"Yeah, I guess so." Demyx agreed sadly.

We headed to the Grey Area, trying to avoid Larxene along the way. Roxas was waiting when we got there.

"Hey, guys." he greeted us.

"Axel, you're finally here." Saïx was walking towards us.

"You're teamed with Roxas for heart collection today. I heard there's a group of Emblem Heartless in Twilight Town." He turned to Demyx. "There's some more Heartless outside the castle. You can take them."

"But… but I'm not cut out for combat! Can't I have a recon mission or something?" Demyx complained.

"Perhaps you would like to take that issue to Master Xemnas?" Saïx said, turning away. Demyx sighed and reluctantly headed towards the castle entrance.

"So, Roxas, you ready to go collect hearts?" I asked.

He nodded silently.

"Geez, don't talk my ears off!" I joked. "Let's go."

Roxas had made tremendous progress in his fighting skills over the past week. I was amazed to see how easily he took out the Heartless. I had made a lot of progress as well, but I still hadn't fully recovered from the injuries I took fighting the giant Heartless last week. Pretty soon, we had collected more than enough hearts.

"Good work today, Roxas. You've made a lot of progress lately." I said.

"Thanks." he mumbled, looking at the ground.

"Come on, chatterbox, let's head back."

"Yeah…"

"Hey, Roxas, you got any plans for the afternoon?" I asked, hoping to get more than one word at a time out of him.

"Well," he began "I was just going to check in with Saïx and then go to my room like always."

Poor kid. "Go to your room?!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Roxas, Roxas…"

"Wait up!" Three kids suddenly came sprinting around the corner and stopped near us.

"No fair, Hayner!" one exclaimed. "You got a head start!"

"All right, we'll have a rematch." the boy who must have been Hayner agreed. The three ran off, and as they left, Hayner shouted: "Last one to the station buys everyone ice cream!"

"Oh, sure, now you tell us!" one of his friends replied.

When they were gone, Roxas looked up at me. "Who were they?" he asked.

"Probably just some kids who live here. I answered.

"They sure acted weird." he mused.

"Really? How do you figure?"

"Why did those last two seem to enjoy getting pushed around like that? They were even making those 'ha ha' noises."

"You mean laughter?" I asked, trying not to laugh a bit myself. "Sometimes people with hearts just do that, even if it doesn't make any sense."

"Oh… so I guess they're different from us." Roxas decided.

"Hey, let's go get some ice cream before we head back." I suggested.

"Why?"

"Whaddaya mean, why? Because we're friends that's why."

"So, friends are people who have ice cream together?" Roxas wondered aloud.

I thought back to the morning, and the comment I had made about friends. "That's what friends are for." But... what exactly IS a friend? Sure, I've always known the answer to that question, but I could never put it into words.

"Sort of…" I searched for something to help Roxas understand. "That, or laugh at stupid stuff that doesn't make any sense. Like those kids we just saw-they were friends. C'mon, I'll show you how it works." I'd seen how the others ignored or just plain disliked Roxas. He needed somebody to treat him like a friend.

For the next few days, Roxas and I met after work to hang out at the station. He was making progress every day. Not only were his fighting skills improving, but he was getting better at holding up his end of a conversation, too.

Maybe Roxas and I could be friends.

**Updates for this are going to be slow, my schedule is kind of crazy, but I'll try to keep up with this as much as I can :) Thanks for reading! :)**


	4. Team

The smell of curry wafted through the halls, and I followed it to the dining room. Zexion must have done the cooking today - curry was his favorite.

Hardly anybody was there when I arrived.

"Eager for dinner today, Axel?" Zexion greeted me.

"Yeah, I guess so!" Who wasn't eager for dinner every day?

"Oh," he began. "They've moved the C.O. plans up, did you hear anything about that yet?"

"No, I don't think I have." _Why would they be in such a rush to send half the Organization off to C.O.? _

"It starts in two days, if I remember right. They've already set the team, we'll be finding out who's going today." he informed.

Suddenly, several people came into the dining room all at once.

"Well, I think everybody's here now. But what's with everybody coming at once?"

Xemnas, who happened to be nearby, answered: "They are impatient to know about the C.O. team. How they even know about it escapes me. I know the Organization is small, but rumors still spread rather quickly."

"You're telling me!" I agreed, thinking back to the time I came back to the castle too injured to walk. It didn't even take a full day before the entire Organization wanted to hear the story. It felt like such a long time ago, even though it had only been a week.

Eventually, everyone settled down at the long table. Well, almost everyone: Larxene hated curry and felt like everyone had to know her opinion in full detail. Otherwise, we were all just waiting for Xemnas to say something about the team.

He never mentioned it, however, so the table fell to its usual hum of conversation.

After a long time, Xemnas stood up at the head of the table. "There will be a meeting tomorrow morning." he announced "I only need Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion, Axel, Marluxia, and Larxene. For everyone else, continue with your normal work."

A bunch of whispers rose from the table, probably all something long the lines of: "Is that the C.O. team?"

In the meeting the next morning, we were all assigned our roles in the team. Larxene and I were given the task of testing Sora, a keyblade wielder Xemnas had been following since he found Roxas. It turned out that Roxas happened to be Sora's Nobody. Anyway, we had to find out if this Sora kid could be of any use to us. There was also some kind of Chamber we were supposed to look for if we had any extra time. Xemnas wouldn't tell us anything about it, but insisted that we would know if we found it.

I walked through the castle that afternoon, trying to figure out how I was supposed to test this Sora without hurting him, at least not badly, since we had to test his fighting skills as well as how easily he could be influenced. I figured I would just have to pick a fight with him and leave him with something to ponder for a while to see if he would believe me. I was trying to figure out exactly how to make that work when I saw Saix come around the corner.

"Axel, I have more information about the C.O. mission." he said in his usual calm tone.

_More information? Like there wasn't enough from that two-hour meeting this morning!_ "What would that be?" I asked, hoping it wasn't yet another complicated task or mysterious thing to find.

"Lord Xemnas has informed me that there may be some members in the team who intend to commit treason against the Organization. Your task is to find and eliminate them." Saix answered.

_So it is another job. Why can't Xemnas eliminate traitors himself? Or maybe this didn't come from Xemnas…?_ "I take it that came straight from "Lord Xemnas's lips?" Maybe I could get the truth out of him.

"You don't trust your own friend? You've changed, Axel." he concluded as he turned to leave.

I remembered when Saix and I were kids, we were best friends then. I was still the same person, but Saix had become so different. It was almost like he reminded me of Xemnas more and more every day.

I met Roxas for ice cream again that evening. Talking and laughing with a friend almost made me forget about everything waiting in the not-too-far-off future. But still, a little shadow loomed over my thoughts, and grew until I couldn't fight it anymore.

"I'm going to miss this ice cream thing we do." I sighed.

"What?! Why?" Roxas exclaimed.

"Well, starting tomorrow, I'm going to be away for a while." I answered, wishing I had started with something a little clearer.

"Oh… Where?"

"I guess since you're my friend, I can let you in on it. You see, the Organization has a second castle in the realm between light and darkness. It's called Castle Oblivion, got it memorized?"

"Yeah, but why are you going there?"

"There's some stuff I've got to take care of." Stuff that didn't even make much sense to me, and I was the one who had to do it.

"Oh…"

I wished I didn't have to leave. What was Roxas going to do? I seemed to be the only one around who actually wanted to help him. I knew he would be fine, but I still didn't want him to have to deal with everything on his own.

"Well, I've got to go get ready to leave tomorrow. Nothing but fun, fun, fun!" I said sarcastically.

"Oh, okay. Let's go, then." Roxas mumbled, sounding almost… sad?

There was definitely something different about this kid. Maybe it was the fact that Sora was still alive. How Sora and his Nobody could be alive at the same time was yet another mystery we hoped to solve at Castle Oblivion.

**Sorry this chapter was so boring, I'll try to make the next one more exciting. **


	5. Castle Oblivion

**Sorry it's been so long since I updated this, but I tried to make up for it by making this chapter longer. Enjoy! :)**

An odd-looking building loomed in the distance. It was so strange to see something other than the narrow winding path we had been following for the past few hours. I wasn't quite sure how, but the path had somehow transformed from a simple dirt path in a grassy field to an odd sort of purple stone surrounded by nothingness. When we reached the castle, this strange ground spread out to be just large enough for the castle to fit on top.

"Looks like this place would be easy to defend." I noticed. I wondered if there wasn't already someone or something living in the castle already.

"Good. We won't have to waste our efforts on defense. Not that there's anything around here that would want to go into a place like that without a good reason." Lexaeus pointed out.

"But how are we going to get Sora and his accomplices to go in there? They have no reason to climb to the top of some strange castle in the middle of nowhere." Zexion reasoned.

"We'll tell them that they'll find something dear to them if they can make it to the top." Larxene answered. "We all know how passionate Sora can get about something he cares about, even if he doesn't understand it."

"Sounds like this boy needs to learn some logic." Vexen commented.

By this time, we had reached the doors of the strange castle. Marluxia, who was at the head of the party, pushed the door to open it. He seemed to have expected the door to be very heavy, but it swung open at a light touch, and he tripped a little when this happened. He turned around to us. "Be on your guard: we have no idea who or what could have found its way in here."

We all summoned our weapons and cautiously entered the castle.

We were greeted by a blinding light. When my eyes finally adjusted, I realized that the light came from nearly everything in the castle. It was all bright white, with an eerie sort of glow to it.

"Well, at least it's not nearly so gloomy in here as it was outside!" I half joked.

"Shut up Axel!" Zexion whisper-shouted. "If there's something in here, you just called it to us!"

"Oh, calm down, Zexion. If there was something in here, we would have seen it already in this place. A flea would stand out in all this white light." I replied.

Lexaeus backed me up. "Axel's right, you know. I think we're the only living things within miles around here. Either way, we need to focus on our mission. Zexion, you and I will find out what's in the lower floors. Marluxia, Vexen, you two see what's outside. Axel and Larxene, you two check out the upper levels."

We all agreed to this, although I wished I could have teamed up with someone other than Larxene - she annoyed me, but I figured we would all join back up in a little while, so I reluctantly consented.

"All right, let's get this over with." I said, heading towards a door that looked like it would lead to the upper levels of the castle. I tried to push it open, but it wouldn't budge. There was no handle to pull it open either.

"Oh, come on." Larxene sighed as she came over and tried to open the door. "What's wrong with his door?" she complained.

I looked around, hoping to find a switch or something. All I could see was an oddly-shaped card laying on the floor. I picked it up carefully, hoping it wasn't some kind of creature with some evil intention. Nothing happened, so I turned it over and saw a picture of what looked faintly like the clock tower at the station in Twilight Town. "How did this get here?" I wondered aloud. I held it up to try to get a better look at it and it somehow seemed to cause the door to open. Once the door was open, the card disappeared.

"So I guess we need to use these cards to go through doors in this place." Larxene commented.

"Yeah, I guess so." We went through the door and found ourselves in Twilight Town, but it looked a bit... off. The biggest change was that there were symbols above each door.

We walked over to one of the doors and found another card near it. This time, I knew what to do. We used the cards to investigate the entire town and eventually we found ourselves in a place that looked a lot like the entrance of the castle.

"This must be the second floor." I mused, noticing that we had been going uphill through the town, and then there were the stairs in the hallway here too.

"I guess that makes sense." Larxene agreed.

After a long time, we made it to what seemed like the top floor. It was definitely different, and there were no more stairs. There was a sort of sphere on a stand in the middle of the room.

"I wonder what this is?" I thought aloud as I cautiously approached it. The sphere was almost perfectly clear. It seemed to be made of both light and darkness at the same time.

"Looks like it's just glass." Larxene said, not paying any attention to the mysterious object. the only other thing in the plain room was a small chair in the corner, so we decided to head back and check in with the others.

To my surprise, when I opened the door, there was a young girl just outside it. _How did she get here?_ She tried to run away, but I caught her wrist just before she could get away.

"Who… who are you?" the girl asked, struggling against my grip.

"I'm Axel, and I'm not going to hurt you. Got it memorized?" I explained.

"How am I supposed to trust you?" she replied, continuing to struggle.

"Look, if we wanted to hurt you, we would have done that a long time ago." Larxene answered in an annoyed tone.

"What do you want from me?" the girl questioned.

After a lot of explaining, we finally got the girl to admit that she was Namine, Kairi's Nobody. She reluctantly agreed to work with us, and we in turn promised that when Kingdom Hearts was completed, she would have her own heart.

Not that we were really sure that this could happen, but it made a good bribe.

Now it was time to get our hero with the Keyblade to come to the castle. That would take us a while though, so we spent a few days turning the castle inside-out looking for the Chamber or whatever it was that we were supposed to find.

* * *

"Oh, come on, Marluxia!" I sighed.

Seriously, he'd been talking to Sora and his companions for who knows how long now, and not testing the kid at all, like he had said he would. I was running out of patience, and if Marluxia wasn't going to test Sora, then I was. Not wanting to deal with the castle's bizarre door-card system, I used darkness to get to the second floor, where Marluxia was STILL just talking.

"What do you want?" Marluxia said in an annoyed tone as soon as I arrived.

_Glad to see you too, Marluxia._ "No hogging the hero." I said sarcastically. Really, if you say you're going to do something, do it.

"Then perhaps you would like to test him." he said, tossing me a pack of battle cards.

"Perhaps I would." Maybe now we could see what Sora really could do.

Marluxia left as soon as he could. _Way to help out your comrades._

"My show now, Keyblade master." I declared, glad to be actually accomplishing something for once. "Who am I? Oh, my name's Axel. Got it memorized?"

"Uh… sure…" Sora answered, obviously unsure of what was going on.

"Good, you're a quick learner!" I exclaimed somewhat sarcastically. I wasn't normally _this_ rude, but I had to make sure he hated me enough to put up a decent fight. "So, Sora, now that we're getting to know each other better -" I started to summon my chakrams, making sure there was plenty of fire involved too, just so he would hopefully see me as more of a threat.

As soon as Sora and his friends realized what I was doing, they all whipped out their weapons. Man, these guys were quick to pick a fight!

"Don't you go off and die on me now!" I warned as I prepared to attack. I wasn't going to fight hard or anything, I just needed to test their strength.

"Dang, you're good!" I was getting tired of trying to put up a convincing fight without hurting Sora or his friends. Really, Sora wasn't all THAT impressive, but he _was_ better than I expected. I mean, how much would you expect from an overconfident teenager?

"Getting tired?" he teased.

"I could keep this up all day!" I braced myself as he backed up and raised his Keyblade, preparing hurl it at me.

The blade came spinning through the air, leaving a bright trail of light behind.

I tossed a chakram at the Keyblade, making it fly off to the side.

Sora, poor kid, obviously had no idea how important it is to watch your enemy, and instead stood there gaping at the arc of his weapon in the air.

I took advantage of these precious few seconds to throw as many attacks as I could at him.

He couldn't manage to defend himself against even one. I hoped he wasn't hurt too badly, but after how well he had been fighting, I had expected him to be a bit better. It looked like I was about to win this battle: Sora was weakened, and he did a terrible job of hiding it.

I was a split second away from finishing the battle when that stupid duck, Donald, cast a cure spell aimed at Sora.

The boy leaped up, raising his Keyblade above his head, and brought it crashing down on me.

I was knocked flat on my back, looking up at a KID pointing his weapon at my throat. There was no way I was going to lose.

I reached up to move the blade away and stand up again, but noticed a streak of red across my arm. _Where did this come from?_

I didn't care that I was injured, I only needed to win the battle. Somehow, the sight of my own blood made something rush through me. I would have called it anger if I hadn't known that Nobodies can't feel emotions.

I took advantage of whatever it was and sprung into the air, attacking with everything I had. _So much for holding back. _

Sora finally fell to the ground, panting, but miraculously, he looked like he was completely unharmed. It probably had something to do with light or the Keyblade or something like that.

Once I was sure he was defeated, I left, leaving a card behind. It was the kind that would open the door to the next floor of the castle. I hoped it would leave him curious enough to keep moving.

Eventually, Sora and his companions picked themselves up off of the floor. Sora found the card laying on the floor and picked it up.

He was almost immediately pummeled with questions from his friends: "What's that?" "What does it do?"

Eventually a voice answered their questions, but I couldn't see who or what the voice belonged to. "It looks like the card you used when you made Traverse Town, on the last floor." I had no idea what "Traverse Town" is, but I think this voice finally got it right.

"So, we must need this to move on then." Sora thought aloud.

I had to make sure he kept going, so I decided to try to feed this little spark of curiosity: he would never make it to the top floor without a bonfire's worth of curiosity... or emotion.

"That's right." I said as I stepped around the corner.

"Axel!" Donald shouted, brandishing his staff.

I couldn't help but laugh a bit inside at the sight of an agitated duck brandishing a staff. "Did you really think, after THAT introduction, that I would give up oh, so easily?" I fought to say without laughing out loud.

"Then you were testing us." Sora concluded.

"And you passed!" I began, sounding a little more enthusiastic than I probably needed to. "You're ready now, Sora, ready to take on Castle Oblivion." _Please wonder what I mean by that!_ I begged silently. I continued to say as much random stuff as I could, hoping it would make him curious enough to continue, and also hoping that I sounded more mysterious than just some person prattling on about memories and stuff. I promised him that he would find someone special if he could continue. He probably thought I meant one of his friends he had lost when his world was destroyed. I was speaking the truth though - Namine was indeed special, and she had the power to make Sora believe this too. _That's right, memories._ I had to convince him to pay extra attention to his memories in order for Namine's power to work.

"Our most precious memories lie so deep within our hearts, that they're out of reach, and it seems that you've forgotten that you forgot these memories." I said. I knew it was all fake, but maybe now he would start searching his memories more often. Hopefully it would be enough to help Namine.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sora asked, obviously suspicious of me now.

"Would you like me to give you a hint?" I could almost feel my words dripping with a forced sarcastic kindness. "No!" Sora practically shouted after staring into space for a minute. "I'm going to figure it out on my own!"

_This is one determined kid._ "Good answer, just what I'd expect from the Keyblade master." I answered with the same tone as before. Man, I hated talking that way, but it was working. I threw out a few more abstract words about memories, just for good measure, and headed back to the top floor.


	6. Plans

**Sorry I keep taking so long to update this, life is crazy :P Anyways, enjoy!**

A couple days later, Sora and his friends made their way through another floor of the castle. It had turned out that the mysterious sphere we had found earlier allowed us to watch what was going on in the rest of the castle, and Larxene and I had just watched the trio decide that they needed to continue moving through the castle. Sora already had a few faint memories of Naminé, and the other two were starting to want to discover more memories themselves.

"You seem pretty intrigued by this Sora kid." Larxene commented, interrupting my train of thought.

"Are you telling me you're not?" I asked.

"Haven't decided yet. I think what intrigues me more is... what you see in him."

"There was a time when he became a Heartless, and if one becomes a heartless-"

"They lose their minds and their feelings, and they're consumed by the darkness" Larxene interrupted.

"Right," I continued, trying not to sound annoyed "but Sora was different. He held on to his feelings and his memories, even as a Heartless."

"So it's the strength of his heart that interests you." she declared.

"Isn't the Organization's mission 'to unlock the mysteries of the heart?'" I said. I couldn't stand to let her know that she knew what I was thinking.

Just then, the sphere showed a fuzzy image of Sora and his companions walking through the door that led to the next floor.

"Just as we intended!" Larxene said excitedly.

"We'll continue with our plan." I decided. "Let's see how far this group will go."

"You had your fun on the first floor. Now it's my turn to test him." she demanded, though it sounded more like _"I can do better than you did."_

I tossed her the battle cards I had used to test Sora. "Don't break him." I warned.

"Well, do I detect a soft spot?" she teased. "I'm not going to break the toy, I'm not dumb." she insisted.

"Don't forget, Sora is the key to our plans." I reminded her, hoping she didn't hurt him so badly that he would end up being totally useless. Half the Organization would get turned into Dusks if that happened, and I really didn't want to end up as some mindless, shapeless slave-monster if I could help it.

"I know that you're in on it too." Larxene said as she left. She was right about that, I knew all about the plans to take over the Organization. She had been conspiring with Vexen and Marluxia for who-knows-how-long, and they had just recently decided to offer to let me be part of their plan. I still felt like there was something they were keeping from me, though.

* * *

I watched Larxene battle Sora through the sphere. It was kind of funny, in a way. Sora was so much better than her, and it was obvious how hard it was for her to not be completely pounded by the kid. Why was I ever concerned about her fighting Sora?

It didn't take long for her to give up, and even after that, she continued to act like she hadn't struggled at all, but she did a terrible job of it.

Sora probably thought of the whole Organization as a bunch of wimps now.

* * *

"Whew! Throwing that battle wore me out!" Larxene exclaimed upon returning after the battle.

I couldn't handle forcing politeness anymore, so I simply stated my thoughts: "Oh, really, it looked to me like you just plain lost."

"You just don't appreciate the finer nuances of-"

A Corridor of Darkness suddenly appeared. "An ungainly effort." a voice said from the Corridor.

"Vexen!" I exclaimed, recognizing the voice.

"How could you be humbled by someone of such limited significance? You shame the Organization." Vexen lectured Larxene, ignoring me.

"How can we help you, Vexen?" I offered, trying to avoid Larxene being any more provoked than she already was.

"I came to lend you a hand." he explained. "You obviously believe that this Sora has much potential, but I remain unconvinced that he is truly worth such coddling. I think an experiment would show if he is really of any use to us."

So he had come here to insult our skills and try to prove that he was better than us.

"Here we go again." Larxene said, sounding annoyed. "It's just an excuse so you can have your 'experiments' or whatever."

"I'm a scientist." Vexen explained. "Experiments are what I do."

"Whatever. I think testing Sora is just a cover for testing your valet." Larxene said.

"Valet?! He's the product of pure research!" Vexen defended.

While the two continued to argue, someone who looked like Riku quietly walked into the room. This was the experiment Vexen wanted to use: an exact replica of Riku, but with a much greater potential, at least as far as Vexen was concerned.

Vexen tried to explain what he needed the replica to do, promising that he would get to be just like the real Riku, while Larxene simply taunted him. For a replica, he sure had a lot of emotion; he tried to attack her for it.

"Stupid little toy, think you could defeat me?" Larxene teased once more.

I noticed Naminé watching from the corner, and I could tell how much she hated being a part of this. I felt sorry for her, but there was nothing I could do to help her without risking my own neck and my comrades.

_Wait… felt…? No, I'm probably just imagining it..._


End file.
